Caregiving Crisis: OK we'll be thankful for a few things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Paid leave is shaky. Employers are stepping up. Also, this issue is an all-Golden Girls spectacular.
This issue is sponsored by CareForce: the driving force in reimagining how we care. Bringing together builders, storytellers, funders and leaders to create the infrastructure of care we all need for the 21st century. Learn more here.
Hey everyone,
Fam. Hi. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the U.S. And if you’re outside the U.S., happy day.
We’re going to dispense with our normal formula this issue, where we typically start with an essay. There’s a lot going on and a lot not going on (looking at you, lawmakers and 12 weeks of paid leave.) The House has passed the infrastructure bill with a whittled-down four weeks of paid leave, but still a lot of other provisions that would help the childcare ecosystem. It faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. The whole thing has been an exhausting whiplash that reinforces the lack of respect and recognition the U.S. affords caregiving. It inspired the social-media heavy launch this month of the Chamber of Mothers, a collective movement to focus America's priorities on mothers’ rights. We’ll unpack the latest below.
While government support for caregiving is shaky, employers are stepping up. We’ll talk to Leslie Forde of Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs, who studies what caregivers need and advises companies on how to help. She says the pandemic has lit a fire under companies to force them to support caregivers in a way that didn't exist before.
"They've always had a little bit of skin in the game, but the pandemic just changed the urgency," Forde said.
Also, it is a holiday weekend. So we’ll have a little bit of fun. (Or go down an extreme rabbit hole, as my husband has been witness to while I write this.😁) Which brings us to…
ANNOUNCEMENT! In honor of Thanksgiving and as a way to show my appreciation for you all, I am going to attempt a feat that has *never* been done on Substack.
I will use only Golden Girls gifs in this issue…AND!…I will use gifs of every Golden Girl. They say it can’t be done. But they don’t know me. Not yet.
🦃 THANKSGIVING REAL TALK: Writing this newsletter has been a joy this past year. I never thought that me curating news, getting snarky and using gifs would be a portal into a dimension where I get to connect with like-minded caregivers who share my spirit and angst. I’m grateful and thankful for you all. We are in the trenches and I’m unspeakably glad to be here with you. In the new year, I’m going to try to figure out how we can create more of a community (if we even have time for that?!) and build on this foundation. Message me with ideas! Thank you for being a friend. You know where this going…
So, thanks, as always, for being here. Read more about why I started this newsletter. Subscribe below. Have a caregiving story or know someone who does? Please message me to share your story in a future issue. Hang in there and see you soon. We’ll publish next on December 23rd.1
What To Know About the Caregiving Crisis This Week
NEWS WATCH: ROUNDUP — Keeping tabs on legislation, regulation and conversation:
PAID LEAVE: WHAT IS THE HAPS?! — Paid leave — in a whittled-down-to-four-weeks form — made it out of the House this month in what CNBC said was a “once-in-a-generation change.” But pundits say its fate in the Build Back Better bill is uncertain in the Senate, where it will likely be voted on after Thanksgiving break. Why? The price tag. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is the one vote Democrats need but the centrist is caught up on price and wanting a plan to be bipartisan. Budget estimates say four weeks of leave will cost $205 billion over 10 years. (Sidebar: had some fun with math. That’s 1/29th the cost of what the U.S. spends on the military in a decade.) Ways to compromise, CNBC reports, include making leave available to only new parents. A six-week leave for them could cut the cost in half.
Calling out lawmakers' inaction on paid leave is a major impetus for the launch of Chamber of Mothers. Founders include Lauren Smith Brody of The Fifth Trimester and Pooja Lakshmin, a psychiatrist specializing in women's mental health. You likely saw their social media campaign featuring the hashtag #buildbackbleeding and this hard-to-forget image. Learn more here.
Want to understand what’s happening to the broader childcare industry through the lens of another one? Read and share this incredible series of tweets by Katherine Goldstein, host of podcast the Double Shift and all-around consummate explainer and perspective-provider on this crisis.
OFFICE WORKERS: WATCH OUT FOR ‘MOMMY-TRACKING’ — Yes, workplace flexibility helps women, but Politico reports academics, executives, and gender-equality advocates "are increasingly worried" that women — and caregivers — will take more advantage of hybrid work than men and companies will "subtly — or not so subtly — continue to favor employees who come in to the office more often."
In other words, if hybrid becomes ubiquitous, but mostly used by women “you entrench a women’s work ghetto,” Brigid Schulte, director of New America’s Better Life Lab told Politico. “You are mommy tracked to the billionth degree.” Years of work on equality could be undone if companies don't plan for these issues now, she said. Managers could be warned not to over-weight in-person presence for promotions, for example.
"Unless you are very intentional and careful about how you come back and who comes back and you’re open about culture. I feel this could be worse for women,” Schulte said.
Bottom line: Welp, paid leave is likely to become a battleground issue in the days ahead, Reuters reports. I’ll let Dorothea "Dorothy" Zbornak-Hollingsworth (née Petrillo) sum up my feelings on the difficulty of lawmakers to see the need for it.
::Knock knock::
Uh, oh. Is it who I think it is?
Ah! It’s foremost economist and semi-frequent Caregiving Crisis fixture Blanche Devereaux. TBH it’s never good when she shows up. She loves the drama. What do you have for us, Blanche?
MOMS WITH REMOTE WORK OPTION QUIT MORE OFTEN— Seriously, Blanche? ::Quick Google search:: Yep.
New research from the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis "dives into the nuance of exactly how mothers' economic prospects changed" after the pandemic started and how the challenges "persist more than 18 months" later, the 19th reports.
This marks the first report to show "which mothers in particular fell through the cracks" -- and it was college-educated moms with bachelor's degrees or higher who were in jobs where telework was an option.
Yes, it sounds counterintuitive, says Misty Heggeness, study lead researcher, and a principal economist and senior advisor at the Census. Yes, remote work means flexibility but not in the face of childcare burdens that amounted to what Brookings researchers called a second full-time job for women last year.
“Telework was not the savior,” Misty Heggeness told Washington Post's The Lily. “The pandemic has really demonstrated that there is a lingering space in our society in which gender inequalities still dominate and we haven’t made as much progress.”
Remote work and flexibility are "not necessarily sufficient" in the face of gendered-norms about chores and childcare duties falling on women, she said
And even with children back in school this year, analysts aren't seeing women return to the labor force like they had expected. The number of women either working or looking for work actually fell in September from August, while for men the number rose, the AP reports.
College-educated moms who would work remotely are experiencing large amounts of burnout, Heggeness told the 19th. The multi-tasking was too intense -- but not all moms in this dual caregiving/working role even have a choice.
“So when you’re a mom who doesn’t have that luxury to back off of paid labor to focus on the care of your children, what does that mean both for that individual mother, for that family? What does that mean for that neighborhood and that community? And what does that mean for us as a nation?” Heggeness said.
Bottom line: Let me just point out that the media outlets doing justice to this important study are all focused on female readers. The echo chamber is maddening and tiring. That’s all I can muster up, so we’ll punt it back to Blanche to sum it up.
::Walks into the kitchen::
Oh, hi there, Sophia Petrillo! Did you just eat pudding from a parfait glass? Is that a rattan handbag? And is that a…Walk-man with wired headphones? 😲
Wait, you’re listening to our expert interview with Leslie Forde of Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs and say we should tell everyone what we learned? On it!
EMPLOYERS ARE STEPPING UP — Go to any dinner table in the world, says Leslie Forde. There's one piece of bread left. Hard, crusty, the end. 🥖
Moms will always volunteer for that piece, says Forde of Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs, who studies what caregivers want and need, and advises employers on how to help. She says moms will "self-sacrifice" because of how we're socialized: to be pleasing and perfectionistic.
But the pandemic is undoing that and it's changing the workplace as moms and employers embrace change.
"I'm seeing moms riding this wave of employee power, even if they're not comfortable asking for what they need,” Forde says. “They're more comfortable upgrading and voting with their feet and time... by navigating to the workplaces that are flexible."
Employers are changing, too. Companies could have looked away pre-pandemic, but not anymore. The pandemic has lit a fire under companies to force them to support caregivers in a way that didn't exist before and Forde is seeing that in the companies she works with.
"It changed their willingness to go closer and deeper on supporting what really are the mechanics of care outside of work and allowing people to start to flip some of the mechanisms of how work gets done," she said.
This is why the work of Leslie and others who focus on employers is so important. (Next month we'll take it to the flipside of the conversation and look at Project Matriachs, an inspiring Gen Z movement mobilizing them to help caregivers and advocate with employers before many of them even become caregivers themselves.)
We've all seen headlines about the Great Resignation as a talent shortage emboldens workers to find something better. Employers are "scrambling" to ward it off — it's costly, disruptive and bad for culture, Forde says.
The onus is on employers because ultimately, there's only so much employees can do. You can't self-care your way out of this crisis. The systems have to change.
"If you don't give them the space to do deep work or the psychological safety to set boundaries," Forde tells employers, "then it's not going to have a meaningful impact on the business."
In her work with employers, she advises them to be active in several areas:
Destigmatize mental healthcare and make it easier for them to tap into benefits - provide more awareness, make it more prominent on internal websites, increase subsidies.
Promote flexibility and transparency for all. (See above section re "mommy penalty.") Forde says this is "table stakes" in the workplace now and these changes "are at the heart of allowing more people to participate in work and honors their full potential."
Make it easy for employees to have childcare. Provide it on-site for jobs that must work on-site, offer subsidies, promote policies that ensure more affordable childcare.
Give people time. People want discretionary time more than everything else, Forde says. Resources mean more time. She says companies can offer meal delivery, for example. "They look for all the different levers they can pull to create the space."
Employers must become more proactive, she advises. Very few employees - just 3% from a recent survey - say they feel comfortable asking for specific benefits and policies due to: fear of retaliation, being perceived as not a team player, or fearing it would limit their career growth. And women in particular can more often lack the psychological safety to advocate for themselves.
For employees, she recommends:
Men and dads use their voices too. Dads, especially those in leadership positions, will have a little more weight to change the culture. Be vocal and visible.
Tap into Employee Resource Groups. Forde's recent interviews showed women felt more comfortable advocating as a group. ERGs can advocate for policy change, such as keeping bonuses for maternity leave. "It seems obvious and simple but you can have enough parent power to say it's not right."
Bottom line: Rose Nylund of St. Olaf, who was employed as a grief counselor, has this response to learning employers are being more proactive when it comes to caring about and for caregivers:
Signing off
We did it! No one believed us (mostly because I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it) - but we have achieved an all-Golden Girls-gif moment in this newsletter. Feeling smug. (Also I want this sweater!!)
Thanks, as always, for reading. Special thanks to the Golden Girls and to Giphy, whose repository of GG gifs is pretty hefty, considering the age of the show.🙏 Like, I could never do this with other faves: Alf or the Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship of 1988.2
Please send feedback, ways you avoid cooking on Thanksgiving and favorite gifs from 80s shows. If you found value in Caregiving Crisis, please consider sharing with a friend.
Caregiving Crisis is a newsletter written by Emily Fredrix Goodman. We aim to publish monthly but other things may get in the way.
That’s a day that I call “reverse Christmas” because I go through my kid’s toys and take a carload to Goodwill. It’s my gift to myself. (And he is scared of the basement so he’ll never know.)
Have you seen the Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship of 1988 hosted by Alan Thicke? It is ::chef’s kiss:: Put it on for your kids! And then watch the Key & Peele spoof away from your kids.